


8 Ways To Say I Love You

by Halest0rm3



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Sadstuck, fluffstuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2014-12-29
Packaged: 2018-02-17 21:43:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2324207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halest0rm3/pseuds/Halest0rm3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>8 Different Homestuck Pairings and How They Said I Love You<br/>Inspired by McKinley's Poem, 8 Ways To Say I Love You<br/>I'll update tags as I upload new chapters</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Time and Space

**Author's Note:**

> Oh I'm mixing up the order from the original poem and I'm putting the prompt at the end of every chapter, just to keep it a little bit of a surprise xD

“D-Dave?” Her voice is fragile, as if she was afraid the words might shatter with the touch of the outside world. She closes the textbook and places it on the floor, which you take to mean that your little study cram session is over. Not that you mind much. Harley's a friekin genius so she'll get an A even if she doesn't study and you have a high enough grade that bombing the exam tomorrow would still end you up with a B in the class. 

“Yea whats up Harley?” She bites her lip nervously and looks to the left. You neglect to tell her how fucking cute that is, or how cute any of the other things she does are. Wouldn't be cool, and above all Dave Strider is cool as a penguin dual wielding machine guns while riding a horse backward. 

“Have you ever kissed a girl?” You hear your heart beat faster and the room suddenly gets hot, extremely hot, like jegus is the ac even working?? You thank whatever deity of badass anime shades is up there that she can't see your eyes grow wide with surprise. 

You force a chuckle through your closed throat and lean back against the bed with exaggerated chillness. Swag thats you, that's Dave Strider, that's Dave Fucking Strider King of All That Is Shitty And Ironic. 

“Pshh you know me Jade, I got so many chicks after some Strider Sugar I could be called like the next Jesus incarnate, bringing the holy light of irony to the poor masses and they're all like *swoon* ohdave dave you're so good do that holy light again dave I love you so much dave show me your wings again I want to touch them, and I'm all like woah chicas hold up im a busy guy here's the waiting list for some Dave Magic ya gotta sign up, write down your bra size over here sign the terms and conditions and we'll call you in 4-6 weeks” Your voice trails away as you realize somethings wrong with your best friend. Normally she's cracking up during your ironic rants, during your shitty metaphors. Jade Harley, the chick who thinks everything you do is fucking hilarious for some reason, the girl who can be annoying as hell when she hangs onto your shoulders, when she steals your shades, when she mocks you and then puffs her lip out so you'll forgive her(which you always do). But silent? She's never silent. She talks almost as much as you, and giggles about twice as much, a constant noise in your life that you sure as hell couldn't live without. 

“Im serious Dave” 

“I want the truth”  
The truth huh? You're really not good at that whole “truth” thing. The truth makes you feel naked, vulnerable, which is why you hide yourself behind shitty metaphors and an aura of mystery that you've spent your whole life building. Another lie comes to your tongue fast as thought, easy from years and practice, until you make the mistake of looking at her. Her clear green eyes wide with sincerity pin you down while her puffy lower lip beats you over and over worse than any interrogation and you finally give up you finally throw in the white flag and the green flag and every single other goddamn flag you have because... well its Jade. Its Jade Fucking Harley, and god knows you've never been able to refuse her before. 

“Naah there was one girl named like Hannah or something who tried to kiss me in 5th grade but that was when I still thought girls had cooties and shit. Other than that there's never really been anyone I've been interested in.” You meet her eyes desperately wondering whether you gave the right answer or not. From the way her lips tilt upwards slightly in a cracked grin you're willing to bet yes.

“Ya know what, all the chicks probably think you're in the gayzone with John, otherwise who could resist the Strider Charm” Jade winks and you smile cause that means she's back to normal, back to get in your face be obnoxiously loud Jade. 

“Maybe I am in gay cahoots with my platonic soul mate you ever thought about that Harley, I'm talking like fucking plot twist right there watch your step before you trip and die”

“Dave come on I know my brother, you might be jonesing after his junk but he sure as hell ain't after yours”

She puts two fingers in front of her mouth to copy John's buckteeth “I'm not a homosexual!!!!” She squeaks in a mockery of John's high pitched voice and you can't help but laugh a little(not giggle of course cause giggles dont really work for you like who even suggested that you're gonna go beat them up later) because Jade is just fucking awesome. 

Sometime during all this conversation Jade moved from her spot on top of the bed(Fairy Tail sheets if you were wondering with like blue flying cats whoever wrote that manga was on lsd or something jegus Jade watches the shittiest animes...and forces you to watch them to as if that wasn't bad enough). Now she's right in front of you, sitting criss cross applesauce like a little prep school girl and she's leaning forward like she always does because Jade Harley never learned the meaning of personal space or just doesn't give a damn so that you can feel her breath against yours and of course she's heated like a furnace so you can feel her heat even though you're not touching her. You rearrange your shades subconsciously and lean back with all the swagger you can muster. 

“So what was that about? I mean if it was Rose then I would just chalk it up to some psychobabble voodoo dead alligator shit but you don't usually go interrogating me like that”

She falls silent again and you reach out to hook a stray piece of her hair back behind her ear. “Talk to me Harley, you and me we're a team right? We tell each other everything”

“Well, I was in science and we weren't doing anything so I was hanging out with Ginna, Lisa, and Mirajane”

“Oh you mean too much makeup, wolverine nails, and all in pink right?”

“Dave!! They're my friends!!” And you almost block the punch she aims at your left arm but Jade's too quick and damn Jade knows how to hit and you can feel the tingling all through your arm as the little cells are freaking out causing a riot and the manager cells are all like calm down please proceed to the nearest exits but noones listening and the head honchos up at Mr. Brain are all like send the swat teams so a bunch of white blood cells go up and start using riot shields and tearing tear gas at the protesters but a reporter writes a story about it and soon the whole body is mad at the government and they're starting protests on tumblr and twitter and basically its all just a mess. That's how hard Jade hits. 

“Jegus Jade lighten up on the fists!”

“Hehe you can handle it cool kid. I am just a little girl after all” And she gives you the puppy eyes you hate so much 

“Anyway?”

“Oh yeah so wolverine nai- I mean Lisa!! Lisa was talking about how she'd kissed some random dude at a party and then they all started talking about where they've been kissed, in the rain, in the closet, in bed.”

“Yea and?”

“W-well the thing is... I've never been kissed!! And I'm 15!!”

“So? I'm the same age as you and I haven't traded spit with anyone else yet”

“Well yea, but you're Dave... You're all like cool and shit”

“Jade you flatter me too much”

“You're like not even human sometimes”

“You caught me! I'm actually E.T, I just got a shit ton of plastic surgery”

“Wouldn't be surprised” She says with a wink

“So you want to be smooched? Hate to break it to ya Jade but you kinda need a boyfriend for that pda shit. I think they sell them on Ebay, just pay shipping and you'll get a brand new spanking boyfriend in 4-6 weeks”

“What about my best friend?”

“What best friend you talking about?”

“Well let's see... maybe the best friend thats _right in front of me!!”_

“Uh” Yep there goes your higher cognitive functions, wave goodbye to them cuz they're taking a fucking vacation to like Florida or Hawaii, 7 day all expense paid cruise or something and you're just sitting like a chump right now and jesus you did not see that coming AT ALL, fricking blindsided by like a fucking truck!

“Uh what about me?”

Wrong answer. Jade gets all up in your face, her cheeks flushed bright red with anger, embarrassment, god knows what, and it takes all your self control to not step back when she sighs with exasperation. 

“JESUS YOURE IMPOSSIBLE!! Ugh let me put this in a way you can understand... _Can. I. Kiss. You. Dave. Strider. My. Best. Fucking. Friend. Or. Not????”_

Your shades fall off in your haste to back up and you suddenly feel very naked but her glare warns you that it would be a veeery bad idea to look down and put them back on. You're like fucking Bambi right now and she's the SUV charging at you like ten bagillion miles per hour. 

“uhh” 

She softens after a second and backs down. You almost sigh audibly because lets face it, angry Jade Harley is fucking scary!!

“Arghh whatever lets just get back to the homework. Okay the next couple of questions are true or false. Number one: The 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment successfully took Fort Wagner in a bold charge gaining widespread recognition in the North.”

“Sure”

“Dave we went over this like an hour ago!! The 54th failed to capture Fort Wagner but their bravery inspired other African Americans to join the North and that only helped the North's nume-”

“Harley No, I mean sure to the question you frickin pulled out of nowhere like legit could you have given me a little bit more warning before totally shitting on my poker face? But sure I'll give you a little Strider Sugar... just cuz you're Harley though...” 

Her face is priceless, sales tax and shipping included. You grin a little when she pulls her hair behind her ear self consciously and smiles at you. She inches a little closer to you and smoothes out her skirt with her hands.

“Hello Mr. Strider” And you shiver when she nibbles seductively on her lower lip. 

“Jesus fuck Jade don't make it any more awkward than this has to be”

“Are you _blushing_ Mr.Strider??? Man I didn't know I had it in me” And before you can protest vehemently with an elaboratelly crafted metaphor mixed of high quality grade A sarcasm and handharvested albino angel tears she leans forward and gives you a chaste peck on the lips. 

“Eh I don't really see what all the fuss was about” She's blushing though in spite of her words. Her glasses are tilted askew and you carefully lift them from her face to place them on your naked eyes. 

“Hey!!” 

“Wow Harley your vision is worse than mine. Hold up” And you feel for your shades behind you not taking your eyes off her, and when you finally find them you place them on her eyes. 

“There! Much better than your dorky glasses” You ignore her cry of protest.

“Ughh I cant see you piece of fuck give me them back!!!” She tackles you and its only after you're both tangled up in a mess of papers, broken pencils, and her hair in your face that you realize this is pretty nice. You could get used to this you think.

“What are you doing?” She's flipping through the textbook, back in the carefree legs-crossed position she held before any of the shit went down. 

“You made me lose my page you piece of shit!! Now go get your textbook and we're going to finish this”

She doesn't mention the kiss for the rest of the night. 

*****

She's the mystery you never asked to have to solve, a fucking rubrix's cube on steroids and why are you thinking about this as her hips straddle yours, as your hands rake her thighs and hers run down your chest and her playful nips turn into deep kisses and why can't you just enjoy this because fuck its hot but all you can think about is how two hours ago she was talking about this guy she had a crush on and asking your advice on whether or not she should ask him out and all you wanted to say was “just ask me out” but youre an idiot and she's gorgeous and you're just her friend and her fuck toy jegus what did you get yourself into?

She's hungry for you, her pushy personality and her hormones teaming up so that she's the one who barges into your room at night, she's the one pushing pushing forward 100 miles an hour and its all you can do to keep up, to not get lost in the chaos that is Jade Harley. 

Her messy ragged hair spills over a nightshirt two sizes too big for her and any sort of pants are nonexistant. Her long legs rub against your hips and glimpses of her lime green panties jumpstarted your heart into the beating mess that it is. She pulls back and your involuntary groan only serves to prove that Jade is the best drug you could have ever gotten addicted to. 

“Whats wrong with this picture Strider?” Her hands move up from your chest and run through your hair as her hips gyrate into pelvis with the force of a fucking bellydancer. If she keeps this up any longer...

“Umm” Words are kinda hard to do right now. Words kind of require that you not be gasping for air, that your whole body not feel really hot and cold at the same time, that a gorgeous as fuck girl not be on top of you. 

“I took your shirt off...” Her hands go back to your chest, gripping it almost to the point where it hurts. “And yet my shirt is still on. Come on Strider I thought you were a gentleman!!” She guides your hands to the ruffled ends of her shirt and you pull it over her head and toss it on the floor. 

Her bra is lime green, matching her panties, and leaves little to the imagination stranding your addled brain in a desert of euphoria. You place your hands gently on the fabric and she leans into them, her coy smile of approval watching you all the while.

Her lips graze yours, teasing you with sparks before pulling away and you rise to the bait, your hands falling to the small of her back pushing her towards you and you press your lips against her passionately feeling her gasp of surprise, her intake of breath as you press yourself against her, inch by inch, two bodies matching into one, fuck she's hot. Her tongue slips against yours, so softly it could've been an accident which doesn't stop the vibration felt throughout your whole body and the passionate press of lips on lips turns into a raging inferno of tongue and bites and gentle suckles.

She's winning this war of tongue and spit, you can feel her smirk against your lips as she leads you, as she shows you what to do and where to do it. Its okay, losing's never felt quite so good. She tastes sweet, a warm kind of sweet like maybe apple pie, or no definitely homemade belgian waffles with ice cream on top. Jade tastes like waffles. 

“You taste like waffles” you whisper into her neck in between alternating nips and kisses and you can feel the vibration of her laugh against you.

“Y-you taste like shitty deodorant” 

“Hey!!” But you don't have time to complain any more because lo and behold she's kissing you again, soft and gentle this time with just enough pause in between each one to make the next kiss taste all the sweeter. 

Her hands are on your neck when she pulls away, not too far, close enough that you can still feel the warmth from her body. The moonlight from the window falls square on her face and not for the first time you think that the girl in front of you is beautiful. Not even beautiful in a give Little Strider a raise, heck lets give him a fucking promotion and a corner office and everything. Not even beautiful in rate ten out of ten, rate 15 out of ten because the scale's fucking broken call the scale repair guy houston we got a problem way . No Jade's beautiful in a let's hang out all day because you make me happy even when Bro's being a douche and the pills im taking are doing jack shit for my depression and I just hate everyone and everything except you way. She's beautiful in a I would never say anything because you're my best friend but if anybody ever called you ugly they wouldn't even make it to the hospital way. She's beautiful in a the reason I make out with you is for moments like these when I can be this close to you and just memorize every curve and line in your face without it being awkward or weird way. 

There's a scar on the outer edge of her left cheek, a harry potter type deal sideways lightning bolt and everything. She got it 4 years ago, during spring break, when you and her were just chilling in the treehouse that Bro built for you and she decided it would be a great idea to do a fucking cartwheel in a 13 foot high treehouse before falling and cutting her face open against her bicycle. Dumbass. 

Its faded though, and normally she uses concealer so that you can't even see it most of the time. She's ashamed of it, sometimes you still catch her touching that part of her face selfconsciously. She thinks its ugly, that it deforms her face, and she cried for two days straight when a jackass she liked called her scarface.You think that's stupid. Its part of her, she's not one of those preppy girls, she's a warrior, a daredevil, and she can shoot a rifle better than anyone else in the school to boot. 

“What are you thinking about idiot?” And her voice cuts through your thoughts. She's giggling softly, little bubbles of laughter popping every couple of seconds like boiling water.

“Nothing” Because she's amazing and you're a dork, because there's nothing quite like the thrill of seeing her green text pop up on your computer except maybe when she shows up uninvited and picks your lock to get into your room and some might call that rude but you know that's just how Harley is and there's no way a guy like you could ever be with a girl like her, and if you ever tried then you would lose your best friend, your platonic fucking soulmate. So you say nothing instead of saying I love you and you lean up and kiss her because maybe if you kiss her passionately enough, you won't have to say it and she'll just know. 

You do say it though, a minute later, because there's only so long you can hold your tongue back and chain your lips from saying the words that you practice at night when only the stars are listening. You mumble it against her neck in the midst of her moans, you whisper into her chest as your kisses trail from her lips down to her belly button and she's laughing all the while so she can't hear you move your lips against her smooth skin. 

You mouth it when her lips meet yours, when her eyelids brush against yours, when you can see her eyes wide as saucers in front of you and that's all you see and she's close enough, she's quiet enough, that if you put any air, any volume behind the silent motion of your lips that she would hear, that the grand secret would finally be out. 

You don't though and when she finally falls asleep you stay awake and stroke her hair absentmindedly, happier and sadder than you've ever been. The blankets are all on the floor because Jade's a weirdo who sleeps without blankets and you would be cold but she's as hot as a furnace and her limbs are splayed all over you like chains trapping you in an uncomfortable hot mess. She giggles in her sleep and moves constantly jesus does that girl ever stop moving?

You say it once more, aloud this time, hoping against hope that she'll hear even though you know by experience that nothing short of a bulldozer can wake her

I love you

_"Sigh it into her mouth, wedged in between teeth and tongues. Don’t even let your lips move when you say it, ever so lightly, into the air. Maybe it was just an exhalation of ecstasy."_


	2. Spider8reath

“HEY FUCKASSES WE HAVE A MEETING DOWNSTAIRS IN 10 SO STOP PAILING OR WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU'RE DOING AND COME HELP ME FIND TEREZI CAUSE SHE'S GONE AND FUCKED OFF SOMEWHERE ON THIS GODDAMN METEOR” 

You put a hand over John's mouth, ignoring the puzzled look of confusion he gives back. 

“If we stay quiet he won't know we're here” You whisper in John's ear and he nods in agreement, albeit reluctantly. John's too much of a good kid to admit that Karkat's rants are as boring as a 8 day stale sopor sandwich stuffed with faygo but no way are you giving up John to that nubby horned loudmouth. 

“I KNOW YOU TWO ARE IN THERE SOLLUX SAW YOU GO IN SO DON'T EVEN TRY TO PULL ANY WOOL OVER MY EYES THE FUCKING WOOL IS STAYING OFF MY VISUAL SENSORY ORGANS”

The various expletives go on and on as Shouty Mcnubbs yells to his hearts content, but eventually the shouts die down and if you were anyone but the most badass Thief of Light ever you would be praying to her imperial grubsack like a good little wriggler for Karkat to go away, BUT you are not in fact a little wriggler and you control aaaaaaaall the luck which means you don't need any prayers or wishes to get what you want. 

"OH LOOK KARKATS SO ANNOYING HE'S SUCH A LITTLE PRICK I MEAN ITS NOT LIKE IM TRYING TO SAVE YOUR ASSES FROM A PSYCHO DEMON DOG OR ANYTHING BUT SURE WHATEVER IF YOU HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO IM NOT YOUR LUSUS I'M NOT GONNA DRAG YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING RECUPERACOON TO LICK YOU CLEAN. SEE YA FUCKASSES OR NOT WHATEVER"

You pull your hand away from John's mouth. "Told ya" You say with a wink.

"Soo I'm guessing we're not going to the meeting?"

"Of course not Egdork!!"

"But what if Karkat has something important to say?"

"John Egbert you are going to stay here and entertain me or else!!!!!!!!" You give him a Serket glare which he totally ruins by giggling and leaning forward to give you a hug. Dumbass. 

"Hehe you got it Vriska!" You clench involuntarily as every instinct tells you to bite into his exposed windpipe and rip it out, to neutralize the threat that is getting far too close far too soon. In Alternia a hug leads to a feeling jam, or death. Being a Spiderbitch you never got to test out that first one but you know that a hug is the perfect opportunity to rip out your rival's throat, which is why only the strongest Moirails did it. Its much simpler than this stupid human friendship thing, where sometimes a hug is just a hug and sometimes a hug means that the person wants something else and they hug when they're happy and they hug when they're sad and they just hug over FRICKIN EVERYTHING and its just frickin confusing because what is this idiot human trying to tell you by leaving his neck so exposed, does he want to be friends, does he want to be matesprits... or your boyfrind whatever that word is?

You finally relax into his embrace just as he pulls back and you almost hiss at him to keep holding you but he doesn't notice thank jegus.

"So if we're not going to the meeting what do you want to do?" He's sitting right in front of you, a little goody two shoes sitting criss cross lusus-sauce with his dorky glasses and his dark wavy black hair and his wide blue eyes, god he's adorable. Fuck him, he's making you act like fucking Feferi or something. 

You take a much needed break from matching his gaze to sneak a peak at the closed window. The normally black empty space is dotted with a patchwork of glittering stars. Must be passing through a dreambubble or something. 

"Hey want to go flying for a bit?"  
*****  
"Vriska you look like so stupid in that outfit" John is laughing his head off which is not cool because he's totally laughing at you, like seriously not cool! Nobody laughs at Vriska Serket, espcially a dork like him 

"Shut up!!! It's not my fault my wings come with a fucking outfit" You snap your wings backwards and push yourself towards him, injecting a little venom into the punch you send toward his shoulder because the idiot is still laughing at you. 

"Oww!!!! Sorry!! You just really look different in orange thats all"

"I just dont get why you can use your powers without putting on your fucking god tier robe!"

"Im just that awesome I guess" 

"Yea right Egdork, tell me a lie I can believe. Race you to that building over there!" Your beat your wings as hard as you can and shoot forward feeling the cold air sting your face as you pick up speed going faster and faster. "Sucker" You whisper to yourself as you're already halfway there and there's no sign of John catching up. Noones as fast as a fucking Serket you guess. 

The air in front of you coagulating into a solid wall doesn't exactly hurt per se so much as piss you off. When you crashed into it in a tangled mess of limbs and wings it kinda felt like crashing against a giant foam wall. The whoosh of air beneath you and a flash of blue as John shot past you so fast even your seven pupiled eye couldn't keep track of him. Suddenly he's floating right in front of you looking smug as a seadweller and you want to punch that smirk off his face but you can't get to him because the idiot made a fucking wind barrier and the tingling in your left foot is proof that kicking and punching at it does absolutely nothing to break through. 

"No fair!!!!!!!! You can't use your powers in a race, that's cheating!!"

"Cheating is just a fancy way to say winning. Isn't that what you said to me?" Shit you did say that. You said that after you tricked him in Monopoly and stole all his money. Damn that came back and bit you in the ass. 

"Fine play it your way" You pull out your dice and twirl them once in your hand before launching them towards John. The wind barrier was designed to stop a flying troll with a 10 foot wingspan, it was not designed to stop 8 magical dice each about half an inch tall. Besides even if it was even magical barriers can get unlucky, and unlucky this one does get because the dice make it through and roll into an octagon of 7 sixes and one 8. The eight is second to last which means that the dice are going to use the musclecrow attack with a lighting bonus which is perfect for now. Of course you knew it was going to be the perfect, which was why your seven pupiled eye shined once as you threw the dice and why you didn't even have to look at the dice to see the result.   
The dice catch flames one by one, a dark blue flame that reduces each one to ash. The ash falls to the meteor surface and you match John's grin with your own sly smirk.   
"Was that supposed to do anyt- JESUS" And you cackle as John's sentence is interrupted by a lightning blast coming from underneath and narrowly missing his side. The monster behind the lightning, a bright blue crow with streaks of yellow and bloodshot eyes bigger than your fist, is followed by seven more like him and as John swerves upward to avoid another lightning attack you feel the wind wall weaken and dissipate.

"Bye Johnny have fun playing with birdies!!! If you need me I'll be at the finish line" You flap your wings lazily as the building gets closer and closer. No need to rush, John might be too fast for the musclecrow's lightning to actually hit but there's enough of them that every time he tries to follow you one swoops in and cuts him off. 

You stop just short of the building and turn back to watch his fight against the beasts you conjured. Two of them are down, how you don't know but you can already feel the weight of the dice materializing back in your pocket. You watch John throw his hammer like a boomerang breaking the wings off one and bashing in the other one's head. Two more dice pop into your pocket and you just lean back and watch the show. Four down... four to go. 

Two divebomb him from above and you watch John evade both with a sideways gust of air. His hammer is flying back towards him and he grabs it just in time to swipe at a fifth bird sending him tumbling down to the ground. Two mini tornadoes and he's down to the last of the eight, a mean looking musclecrow that's at least twice as big as the others. 

Man this is great, he fights better than you expected(though not as great as you of course). You pull out a single die and roll a 4 to materialize a steaming hot bag of popcorn. Can't enjoy a good fight without popcorn, I mean that's like the best time for eating popcorn, not like when watching a movie or anything that would be stupid. 

The musclebeast dives towards him sending lightning arcs towards him all the while but John just stands(or floats whatever) there and with a single hand grabs the crows neck flipping himself onto the beasts body. He uses his grip on the neck to steer the protesting squawking beast and shoots off toward you with the speed of a seadweller confronted with a bottle of shampoo. 

Time to go, you dump the rest of your popcorn and take one of the last couple of steps before your inevitable win. John's too far away there's no way he could ever catch up to you in time. You are indubitably and irrevocably going to win this little race. 

The lightning takes you by surprise, sending you sprawling sideways and your cape catches fire leading you to rip it off and toss it to the side angrily. Using your own magic against you... that takes some serious bulge. John's closing the gap fast but you're like two steps away, all you have to do is cross the finish line and you're good. You take a step... and freeze. Its not your fault, the air around feels like concrete. Really really soft really plushy concrete, but concrete nonetheless and however much you yell at your limbs to move forward they stay in paralysis as John gets closer and closer to the building.

"Fuck this" And with a flash of your eye you get launched forward smack dab into the wall of the building so hard you probably broke your nose and you look to the side to see a smirking John sprawled against the wall next to you. 

"Its a tie I guess" And his smile tilts half an inch upward to the left as his eyes gleam apologetically. 

"I let you catch up to me" You say with all the swagger you can muster.

"Sure. Oh look we have an audience" He points toward the side window and you look in to see 8 trolls and three humans all huddled around Mr. Shouty Mcnubbs. Their eyes were all fixed on you two and the look of surprise on their faces was TOTALLY worth the glare that Karkat was giving you. His anger is so cute, with his little nubby horns and his tiny figure. Oh you love our fearless leader. 

"Lets give them a little farewell present" And you flick them off with both hands before grabbing John's hand and flying to the roof, out of the sight of the occupants inside. His hand is as warm as a rustblood and gives your cold blueblood skin goosebumps all along your arm. You dump him roughly on the roof before crashing down yourself, landing on your feet as he topples clumsily into a ragged mess of clumsiness and cuteness.

The beating of your heart is unbearably loud in your ears and you laugh not unkindly when John sits back up and a little stub of hair is sticking up like maybe he had just woken up or something and you can't stop laughing John is looking at you weird stop now but you can't and your chest hurts and you can't breathe seriously what is it about this dumbass that makes you this way?

What is it about John that makes you feel like a little wriggler getting her first flushcrush? It's just so easy to be with him. When you're with him you can forget about everything bad you've ever done. You can forget that you're a huge bitch and everyone knows it, that people call you spiderbitch behind your back and to your face. You can forget that you killed hundreds of lusii, orphaned hundreds of troll, to feed your lusus and then you couldn't even save her from a falling rock, just let her die because you had no fucking idea how to save her. You can forget that you've managed to fuck up every single relationship that you've somehow managed to get because god knows noone wants to fill a quadrant with the spiderbitch. 

John's your dork, and you're sure as hell going to hold on to the little piece of shit. 

“So what now?” He says selfconsciously patting down the little tuft of hair that's still making you giggle. You lean up against him, shivering from the cold roof, and look up at the starless space. Somewhere out there is that damn demon dog. Your instincts tell you he's catching up and your instincts are almost never wrong. Soon he'll catch up to your meteor and he'll try and kill everyone on it. It's okay though, you'll kill him when he comes. Fightings about the only thing you're not comlete shit at, and knowing you're fighting to protect Egdork over here? Noir doesn't have even an eighth of a chance. 

“What do you think will happen when this is all over?” The words seem foreign as they leave your lips. Worrying about the future is for suckers, the present is where its at and yet, you can't help but worry. This is actually probably the happiest you've been like ever, and what if... what if you simply lost it all after the game was over?

“What do you mean? I guess we'll just make our universe again and we'll go home right?” His blue eyes find your gaze and you hope with all your heart that he doesn't see the shard of sadness tear you in two on the inside. You swallow and give him a little nod, not trusting yourself to speak. 

John notices though, you've always been a shitty ass liar when it came to him. 

“What's wrong?” You can't meet his eyes so you focus on your nails, staring intently at the secrets hidden on them and not at the stare that would melt you into a little cerulean puddle. They're curved and wicked, the product of years of meticulous care. The last sight your prey would see before you gouged out their eyes. They're beautiful, the sign of the ultimate huntress.

They're despicable, the sign of a murderess, of a bitch. 

After the game is over, you'll be alone. Tavros is afraid of you, Terezi hates you, Fussyfangs hasn't talked to you since the game started, everyone thinks you're an annoying bitch. Jegus even Eridan probably moved on from you by now. And John will be back home. About 8 bagillion miles away from you. Home sweet home. 

“So like when you get home to Earth... d-do you want to keep talking through pesterchum?” You clench your fists shut and steel your face into a mask of disinterest. “I mean I'll probably be busy all the time, ya know all the irons in the fire and shit but just in case I have free time we can like watch a movie together or some shit”

His laughter is a cruel ice cold sword through the broken remains of your bloodpusher and you're about a second away from breaking off his nose. Its only when you glare at him that you realize that there's no malice in his laugh. 

“What do you mean back to earth? 

“Umm aren't you going back to Earth after all this is over?” A tiny piece of you becomes unbelievably light in an impossible high, a tiny traitor to the rest of you.

“Well I mean I have to talk to Dave, and Rose, and Jade of course... but I mean I always figured we would just stick with you guys after this is all over, and I mean sure I would probably go back at first to pick up Dad and Bro and Rose's Mom and Jade's Grandpa, and tell them all bout the game and stuff, but I mean after that we would go with you guys wherever...”  
“if that's okay with you of course!” He adds hastily. 

“Sure I guess it wouldn't be toooooooo bad to have you around” You're getting warm as a rustblood, its pretty fucking embarrassing and you hope John can't notice the flush on your cheeks. 

“To be honest we didn't really have a lot of friends on Earth, I mean apart from each other, so there's not really a point to going back. And Rose could never leave Kanaya... they're like made for each other. Same with Dave and Terezi, she's the first girl I've ever seen him show any actual feelings toward” He grows silent for a moment. 

“And you?” You nudge him playfully, maybe a little too hard because he almost topples off the roof and you have to catch him and pull him back. 

“Yea I guess I really couldn't live without you” His honesty is refreshing, something you could never manage in 8 million years because honesty doesn't come naturally to you and lies are always the first things that spring from your lips. 

Since you can't tell him the truth, maybe you can just show him. You've always been better at doing stuff and damn the consequences anyway. 

“Close your eyes for a sec!”

“How come?”

“I just want to try something really quickly now shut up and close your eyes” And he does, because the dork trusts you for some whatever reason. You killed him on a stone slab and he still trusts you enough to let down his guard in front of you. 

“Okay what n-mphff” Your lips crash against his and he stiffens against you as you take what you want, as you show this little dork exactly how you feel about him. Maybe you should've started off with just a little chaste kiss, you thought of it but that's not really your style. You don't do chaste, you don't do nice. 

The air is getting warmer and thicker making it harder to breathe and you can hear him gasp as you push him down on the roof, not breaking contact with his lips, straddling him with your legs, pushing yourself up against him as close as you can, feeling his breath against yours, his heart beat a million miles per hour in nerve-raddled shock. 

“Vr-vriska” He moans when you pull way just a fraction of an inch, and you can hear your name vibrate through his body sending tingles up your legs. His glasses are skewed, almost falling off, so you take them and set them to the side. 

“Yes Egdork?” And you slowly lean yourself back down on him, inch by inch, till your stomach is pressed against his, and your breasts against his chest, and your noses are touching so his eyes appear wide as the moon and they're all you can see. 

He's hesitant though, his eyes shattered with doubt and the nervousness practically radiating off of him. He looks, he looks scared of you, terrified even... fuck. You moved too fast, you pushed too hard, like you always do... like you always do... like you always fucking do!

“Sorry” You whisper to him “Just forget I did anything” and you push yourself off him black guilt filling your lungs choking you, leaving a foul foul taste in your mouth and all you want to is go lock yourself in your room, blast up the grubbox as loud as it'll go because fuck him and fuck you and fuck everything god you should have learned by now, guess you're still the same fuckup you always were and even he wasn't able to change that. 

Fuck you.

Fuck everything. 

His hand catches your arm as you're pulling up. Not the metallic one, the real one, the one with flesh and blood. The one you're ashamed off. The metal one at least is strong. Its hideous and disfigured but in strength it doesn't even compare. This one is just weak. Its not strong enough to kill Noir, to become as strong as you need to be. 

“Who said I want to forget anything?” And before you can formulate any kind of coherent repsonse he's pulling you back down and kissing you, taking charge with his hands, with his mouth. 

His hands reach down to squeeze your ass(Yes!!!!!!!!) and you bite his lower lip as payback, just shy of drawing blood. Your tongue duels with his in a battle of dominance, a rapidfire exchange of bites and strategic retreats, passion and restraint, to see who gives in first, to see who lets the other take charge. 

He tastes like the cake he hates so much, sweet and soft melting against you in all the right places. Your stupid fucking long hair gets in the way and you can't even pull yourself away to move it out of the way so you leave it there and it scratches when you turn to bite his earlobe but you don't care and it pulls when he goes to kiss your neck but the pain feels good. Your hands press against his chest, and its like pushing away a mountain so you give up and wrap your hand around his neck as you lean in for another makeout session, passion forcing its way past a lack of experience into a hot sweaty mess until the two of you break away to gasp for breath. 

Its quiet for a minute, a good kind of quiet, and he's just tracing the contours of your face with his fingers, does he even know how much it tingles when he does this? How you can feel the tender path of his finger even after he he pulls away and how its horribly unfair how good he is at making your heart beat faster, a little wriggler going on her first flushdate? 

He curves around your cheek, draws your lips, then your nose, pulls a stray lock of hair back behind your ear making sure to graze the outside of your ear in the process and you can't believe how fucking cute this dork can be!

“Close your eyes” He whispers, and when you do he gives you a warm soft kiss, gentle like the sky on a clear day.

You're on the top of the world, happier than you've ever been. 

You open your eyes... and you fall. 

“J-john... J-john y-your eyes!!” 

White as death, and only now do you see the gashes throughout his body, too many to count, gaping cleaving lines of red ripping him open, painting this little tapestry of death. 

“FUCK John what happened???? We have to get you to Kanaya, we have to, she'll patch you up it'll be okay, it'll all be okay!!” 

“Vriska its o-”

“Fuck fuck fuck what happened, they're not bleeding right so thats god that means you won't bleed out we just have to patch-”

“Vriska”

“-you up and then maybe we'll take you to like Rose, I mean she is a goddamn Seer of Light she should be somewhat useful for once”

“Vriska”

“What the fuck happened?? You were fine like 2 seconds ago!!!!!!!!”

“Vriska I'm dead!”

The foreign babble of words that came all to naturally for your tongue dries out and the air suddenly seems far too frigid. Even your heart, which was racing just a minute ago, beats slower and slower, the beating of a drum. Even his heart, which you could hear louder than your own just a minute ago, is tragically absent. 

“N-no y-you c-cant be...”

“Sorry Vriska, I just wasn't as strong as you”

“Who?” You spit out with a venom that surprises even you. Whoever it was you're not going to just kill them, **NOOKSUCKING BULGEFUCKER!!** You're going to rip out their pelvis and beat them to death, you're going to choke them with the flesh of their own dead lusus, you're going to hang them upside down by their bulge until it rips into pieces and then stick your hand up their nook and rip out their bloodpusher. You're going to _fucking kill them_ 8 times over _fuck them fuck whoever it was!!!!!_

He ignores your question how is he so calm, he should be pissed, somebody's going to have hell to pay after this. 

“Don't you recognize this by now? Don't you remember the last time it happened?” His hand gestures toward the stars, toward the dreambubble you're passing through(passing through? Or in?) His lips tilt a little in a somber grin fuck him he's still yours. Bloodied, scarred... dead even, he's still fucking yours. 

“What do you mean the last time it happe-” Your voice trails away as a sense of deja-vu watches over you. Something about the coldness of the night, the stars watching over you.. its so familiar. 

“You remembered”

“Last time, I kissed you... but you didn't kiss me back” The memory is foggy, smoke that you feebly try to grasp, to make sense of, fading away in the din of your thoughts choking you, killing you. 

“Yea sorry about that” He rubs his (bruised bloodied)head self-consciously and gives you an apologetic grin. “I wasn't really expecting you to kiss me so I kind of freaked out and ran away. If it makes you feel any better I felt terrible about it afterwards. And then I kind of maybe... jacked off thinking about it in the shower later.” He giggles a bit at that, a nervous giggle you've heard from him too many times to count. His laughter is still the same, even if the rest of him is unrecognizable. “Sorry” 

“Fuck you John, I don't care about the kiss!!! I want to know how you died!!! I w-want t-to know how to, how t-to save you” You grab him and bring him close. No longer is he warm as a rustblood, his skin is even colder than yours and you shiver when you pull his chest against yours and lock your arms around him like chains to keep him with you. “Th-there has t-to be a way to, t-to s-save you” You choke into his neck past the lump in your throat, past the tears fighting to break free. 

“You did save me, you saved everyone” He gently trails your hair with his fingers, twirling them down their length to the tips.

“Noir caught up to us a couple of days later. Rose would've probably seen it coming if she hadn't been drop dead drunk, same with Terezi god knows where she was throughout the whole thing. Did you know she broke up with Dave to be with Gamzee? At least I think thats what happened, I'm not too sure” There's no pain in his voice, only a somber acceptance that really pisses you off. You're sure as hell not okay with this!!

“He went for the mayor first, god knows why? Maybe it was just the first person he saw. Jade saved him, she basically barreled into Noir. He threw her against the wall and she passed out. By then most of us were there, Dave, Karkat, Me, You, Kanaya with her chainsaw. We fought for a bit, but it wasn't even a fair match, he was just way too strong. It was like that one movie you showed me, the one in which a quadrant-widowed blue blood embarks on a revenge mission to destroy the ruling aristocracy and kill the one who slaughtered her quadrants, includes Troll Selene Kyle, 47 moments of graphic black hate, ecetera ecetera. We weren't even scratching him and he was wrecking us. Dave had to protect Jade so he couldn't really go on the offense, Kanaya was busy trying to bandage up a wounded Sollux, we were basically fucked”

“You told us all to leave, that you would take on Noir by yourself while we all got off the meteor. I tried to stay with you but you told me that with Jade unconscious only my wind powers could get everybody away. So I left you” 

Another sense of dejavu, a flash of black and steel. You reach into your cloak for your dice and pull out only blue sparkling dust. “I broke my dice right? It was the only way I could have enough power to take him on, break my dice and use up all my luck for one final battle”

“You were like a fricking avenging angel out there!! Beautiful as fuck and twice as deadly” In another world that compliment would have made you feel warm and bubbly inside. Now it just feels hollow, cold and empty. 

“I could move faster than light, my whole body was on fire, I could pull out weapons simply by thinking of them” Its all rushing back, a trickle becoming a flow of memories lining up like pieces of a puzzle just waiting to be put into place. 

“You were stronger than all of us combined. But it wasn't enough... Every cut you gave Noir healed right back up, your weapons would break against his fur. I asked Rose if there was any chance that you would win and she just shook her head.” 

A flash of warm wind, a bright blue hammer swinging in from behind you to save you from claws and teeth.

“No John you didn't...”

“I asked Rose if there was a chance that I could save you”

“No John n-no”

Wind pushing you back with the force of a hurricane, the beating of your wings useless as you're pushed away from Noir. 

“I wasn't strong enough to take him, not as strong as you, but I was strong enough to save you, to send you towards the others.”

“Nononono fuck no John fuck you how could you??”

The boom of his hammer ringing out from under the cover of a duststorm, over and over again, until you're too far away to here it anymore. 

“They're taking care of you, waiting for you to wake up, I talked to Karkat before he woke up, everyone thinks you're a hero. He was talking about making you leader of the whole group.”

“I dont care I d-dont care!!! I just want you you piece of shit!!!! you stupid! Fucking! Idiot!!! I fucking hate you!!” Your vision snaps up to him, eyes burning, teeth bared, “I FUCKING HATE YOU” You scream, your voice scratching against your throat to make the cry in your voice less obvious. You launch yourself at him, not sure whether your clawing every inch of him that you can reach out of hate or love, not caring that he's already dead that there's nothing you can do, that you fucked up yet again and this time feels the worst out of any of them. 

He pulls you in and you fight him, you bite him and claw him but he's relentless and he doesn't stop until he's holding the little fucked up ball of fire that is Vriska Serket close to him, until he's fixing her tangled ripped hair, until he's humming a lullaby in her ear, until he's kissing her forehead, and then her cheeks, and then her lips softly, until all her tears dry out along with every other fucking feeling ever. 

You hate him so much. 

“You're going to wake up soon, and I can't stay much longer” 

“No don't leave me” This wretched shattered whine can't be yours right?

“I just wanted to see you one last time” His blue eyes are back, eyes as clear as the sky, but his body is transparent, fading, and its all you can do to not claw him again, to not make him stay with you. 

“J-john, j-john stay please!!! I, I-i l-love you you goddamn idiot” Your hands are shaking, your whole body is trembling. You can hear Kanaya's voice getting louder, a whisper muffled by space but undeniably close to you. You're being pulled away, b-but you don't want to go... you want to stay here.

“I-i l-love you dumbass”

“I love you too Vriska, I always have” And you don't have to open your eyes to know that he's gone and fucked off to another dream bubble. Your blue eyed dork left you, and this time he's not coming back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Wait until something terrible has happened and you can’t not tell her anymore. Wait until she almost gets hit by a car crossing Wabash against the light and after you are done cursing at the shit-for-brains cab drivers in this city, realize you are actually just terrified of living without her. Tell her with your hands shaking._


	3. Lucky Chainsaw

**Excerpt from Kanaya's Poetry Diary**

The 7th bilunar perigee of the 9th dark season's equinox 

Vriska calls me from her grubphone at midnight,  
and im afraid im not thinking terribly straight,  
The human soporific I drank is going to my head blurring her already slurred words  
But I can understand her well enough, too well maybe judging from the stab of jealousy tearing me apart, completely illogical isn't it but then again my love for her has always been irrational, that of a flymoth to a flame and it seems I am destined to be burnt in my passions and wither away,

I hear music in the background,  
The music makes me feel alive she says,  
You never had a problem with that I say,  
You've always burned far brighter than me

I should go to sleep,  
the wine coursing through me is surely reason enough,  
To forego the pain of thinking,  
And to tell the truth,  
I think far too much, far too often and perhaps that is why I'm not happy,  
I should be more like her maybe,  
but speeding along at 888 mph takes practice,  
Living with no regrets, no hesitation, takes skill,  
And I think if I were to try it then it would end badly  
Some of us were destined to stand still. 

She calls at 2 am,  
A pocketdial I'm guessing,  
his voice rings in the background.  
I refill my glass before my brain has a chance to catch up to me  
because im her moirail im her moirail im her morail moirail morail  
I'm happy that she's laughing with him, that she's trying to find a heart,  
And then they stop talking  
I don't have to wonder why  
Vriska always was a noisy kisser. 

They say that without a diamond a heart is meaningless and hollow,  
That a diamond makes you whole and a heart makes you happy,  
But what about when your diamond actually holds your heart?  
What does that make me, who is so scared of looking down,  
So scared of falling and crashing into a wreck of loneliness?

There I go thinking again  
seems not even wine can dull the voices in my head  
I say as I twirl the glass around catching the reflection of the light  
watching the last drops twirl with me, staying with me,  
as if they were my friends

I crush the glass,  
And watch the pieces fall,  
perhaps she is rubbing off on me,  
I was never able to destroy anything before,  
It is oddly exciting isn't it?

I dial her number,  
not knowing what I'll say,  
All I know is I'm tired of being afraid,  
Perhaps just for tonight,  
I can be like her 

*****

_Yoooooooo Vriska here! Im not here right now probably 8eing 8adass wrecking somebody's shit up or something. Maybe I just don't like you that could be it too, aaaaaaaanyway leave a message if ya want. I might listen to it l8ter, or m8ybe not. Im a pretty busy person you know, all the irons in the fire and all that shit. BEEP_

_Hey vr-vriska, i-its i-ts kanaya. So umm I proabably really shouldn't tell you this, I don't really know any way this can turn out well. Umm you know how you're always telling me I should try getting drunk, how it might “make me not so fussy.” Well I took your advice so Im kinda just going to be an idiot and tell you I maybe, possibly kind of perhaps am a little... I'm flushed for you... I'm so... I'm so red for you its embarrassing, i-I l-love you Vriska, I love you..._

*****

Oh God no, no no no no no this is bad. This is really really really bad. The wretched reminders from last night adorn your house, broken shards of glass and spilt wine littering the carpet and your phone laying right in the spot you put it down before you were coerced by your digestion sack to run to the ablution trap and puke. 

This is bad bad bad, you grab your laptop and open pesterchum, ignoring the shouts of pain eminating from your traumatized brain as the _bright bright really bright_ screen flashes on. 

grimAuxiliatrix begins pestering arachnidsGrip  
GA: Vriska?  
GA: Vriska I Need To Talk To You.   
GA: Its Exceedingly Important Please Answer Me As Soon As You Recieve This Message.  
AG: Yea yea yea chill your tits fussyfangs!   
AG: Whats got you all riled up?  
GA: Vriska Have You Checked Your Phone Recently?  
AG: Naah not since I called ya last night  
AG: This morning's 8een a pain!!!!!!!!  
AG: The 8lue8lood I hooked up with last night got all mushy and sentimental on me this morning so I had to kick him out.  
AG: Idiot thought I was quadrantflipping on him  
AG: And then his kismesis showed up right when i'm in the middle of kicking him out  
AG: Damn purple8loods think everything's a h8teflirt  
AG: Let's just say its not 8een the easiest morning  
AG: Why'd you ask?  
GA: Im Your Moirail Correct?  
AG: Well duh!  
GA: And If I Asked You To Do Something For Me You Would Be Obligated To Do It No Questions Asked?  
AG: Yea whatev as long as its not too laaaaaaaame ::::)  
GA: I Sent You A Voicemail Last Night While I Was Under A Rather Inebriated State Of Mind  
GA: I Said Some Things That I Probably Should Have Never Said Considering The Situation At Hand  
GA: Now I Need You To Promise Me You Will Delete The Voicemail Without Hearing What It Says  
AG: Daaaaaaaamn you got wasted??  
AG: Man I can't 8elieve I missed that, shit what are you like drunk?  
AG: May8e a giggly drunk? No you know what I'll bet like 8 bagillion grubbits that you're a flirty drunk, macking on every rustblood that comes your way!! Fuck I can't 8elieve I missed Fussyfangs getting drunk!!!!!!!!  
GA: Vriska Promise Me You'll Delete The Voicemail.  
AG: Yea yea I'll delete it don't ya worry about a thang ;:::)  
GA: Im Not Kidding Vriska Don't Listen To That Voicemail!  
GA: See Im Using An Exclamation Mark To Emphasize My Point.  
AG: Chiiiiiiiill  
AG: I'm deleting it right now noooooooo questions asked AT ALL  
GA: Thank You Darling.  
GA: I Do Appreciate It More Than You Possibly Imagine.  
GA: Do You Perhaps Want To Come Over Later Today? I Made You A New Outfit That I Think Will Suit You Perfectly.  
GA: ...  
GA: Vriska?  
AG: YOU'RE FLUSHED FOR ME????????  
GA: Shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Spit it into her voicemail, a little slurred and sounding like the shot whiskey you downed for courage. Feel as ashamed as you do walking into work in last night’s clothes. Wake up cringing for days, waiting for her to mention it._


	4. Rosemary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one in which Kanaya learns another language and makes a veritable fool for herself in the time honored tradition of romantic embarrassment

“Ughh I came down for this glop????????”

“Vriska!!” Doesn't she realize that Jade's right there?? Wait that was a rather foolish question, it is Vriska we're talking about of course she noticed.

“Whatever you guys can eat this grubslop if you want I'm going back up” And the look of heartfelt dejection on Jade's face makes me want to go grab my chainsaw to go teach Vriska some manners. I'll teach her to be rude to other people. I'll go up to her room, barge in like she does to me all the time, cut her grubbox in half first just to show her I mean business, and then smash her against the wa-... Wait where did that thought come from?!! Was that a PITCH fantasy???

Bite into her neck and drink up the blood that trickles out, make her whimper your name as you reach your nails toward he- Yep that was indeed a pitch fantasy. Just great.

Ughhh unrequited feelings suck. I need to find a new palecrush and soon before I do something stupid. Next thing I know I'll be showing up at her door wearing nothing but a black leather outfit and a whip.

“Jade don't listen to them I thought it was positively scrumptious. I've never tasted a dish quite so...interesting“  
She ignores my attempt at platonic morailism and places her head in her hands. Its not that her cooking was terrible, it was just a little... off. To be fair I've never tasted this human spaghetti before, but from the reactions of John and Dave its probably safe to assume that the individual strands aren't supposed to be crunchy nor the balls of meat soggy .

“No it wasn't, it was disgusting and I can't cook worth jack fucking shit” She mumbles from the safety of her arms, her untouched plate looking dangerously green.

Its Dave who makes the next conciliatory move which rather puzzles me since word around the grub-table is that those two have as of yet unannounced flushed feelings towards each other. Pale-vascillation is a rather dangerous path to go down. Then again what do I even know of feelings, all of my quadrants are going just splendidly!

Yes that was sarcasm. My handle on sarcasm, much like my handle on my quadrants is rather lacking.

“Lets face it Jade cooking ain't your thing, we need like a intervention #keepJadeoutofthekitchen up on twitter trending big time knocking all the all star tweets out of fucking business causing mack havoc”

Well that certainly wasn't conciliatory. Maybe he's pitch for her?

Jade looks up just long enough to hit him in the shoulder before falling back into her despair.

“Jesus Jade lighten up on the fists you didn't let me finish!! What I was going to say was that you cant be fucking perfect at everything like jesus leave some stuff for the rest of us to do. Besides your spaghetti might be inedible and radioactive but its good for something besides eating” At this point he leans in and whispers something into her ear. Jade giggles and bursts out into a grin as she scoops up the plate of her disastrous cooking.

“Lets test out your theory Mr. Strider” Both of them scoop up as many plates of spaghetti as they can before leaving me and John alone with no idea what just happened. Later I would see Karkat storm the hall toward his recuperacoon angrily positively splattered in strands of pasta and marinara, screaming curses all the while at the “NOOKSNIFFING LUSIIFUCKERS WITH EXACTLY ZERO GLOBS OF RESPECT FOR THEIR NATURAL BORN LEADER AND GOD.” For now though, I simply share a look with John which reminds me of something I'd been meaning to ask of him, a rather embarrassing favor actually.

“John?”

“Yea Kanaya?”

“Umm I was maybe wondering if you could perhaps do me a favor?”

“Of course!! What is it?”

“Its kind of, embarrasing. If I tell you can please promise not to tell anyone else?”

“I promise!! And an Egbert always keeps his promise!”

I take a moment to think of how to ask this. Words are important, something a lot of trolls seem to forget, particularly a certain blue eyed cerulean. It bothers me sometimes that I'm the only one who actually cares about the importance of diction in conversations.

Well actually that's not entirely true. There's one other person who shares my love for eloquence.

“Can you maybe, teach me how to write English?” Whichever game mechanic that translated our speech and trollian logs to be able to communicate with humans had either accidentally or willfully neglected to translate our written speech, a fact we had discovered after Karkat wrote a 34 page notice on rules and obligations for all the inhabitants of the meteor which was met with absent stares of incomprehension by the humans. Not a particularly big deal especially since whenever there was occasion to communicate at a distance they could simply use the grubphone or use trollian, but it did complicate a certain... “idea,” that I had long considered putting effort into. 

“How to wri-write english?” The confusion on his face gives way to his customary buck-tooth grin. “Well sure I mean I've never really “taught” anyone english but yea I'll give it a try!!”

His next words freezes my bloodpusher. “Why do you want to learn it if you don't mind me asking. I mean its not that useful here on the meteor”

“Oh no reason” I squeak. “Educalition, and curiousness I mean curiosity! Just because I mean I think it would be a challenge.”

“Ok, I'm actually going to go watch a movie with Vriska right now but we can meet up later if you want” After setting up a time and place to meet I breathe a sigh of relief when he closes the door behind him leaving me alone.

Step one of mission Rosemary underway.

*****

“Is this one of your human pranks that you love so much?” No way no way no way could English spelling be this stupid.

“Kanaya I promise, on my honor as an alien english teacher, that it is spelled c-o-l-o-n-e-l”

“But, but?” Words escape me, not a common occurrence by any use of the word common. “That doesn't make any sense at all. Its pronounced Ker-nel”

“Yeeeep, kinda stupid isn't it?”

Okay no. I fancy myself a very forgiving person. When John told me that there were two sometimes three phonetic pronunciations of each vowel I could stomach that. When he told me that each of these vowels could be combined with other vowels to make hundreds of completely distinct phonetic pronunciations I sucumbed to the endless hours of studying with calm acceptance. When I learned that two words could be completely different, be pronounced completely different from each other, and yet still have the same spelling I might have inwardly, “flipped my shit,” as Dave would say, but in the end I accepted it as yet another complicated nuance in the fabric of what is surely a much more annoying language than Alternian.

But to stand here and hear that the word Colonel defies all phonetic laws of English, to hear that the pronounciation of said word is not co-lo-nel but rather such an obscure, such an unrelated, such a completely illogical, such a completely unrelated ker-nul!!

“You should know that I strongly strongly _despise_ your language”

“Oh don't worry, we do too”

*****

A light tap on my door interrupts my readings of a Dr. Seuss novel starring a particularly sour fellow with a marked distaste for colored chicken fetii and cooked pork. The resemblance to Karkat is uncanny. 

“Hello Kanaya was I interrupting anything?” Rose walks in with the grace of an empress surveying her lands.

“No, not at all. I was simply brushing up on some l-light reading” The lie catches in my throat clear as day and its a wonder someone as perceptive, as intelligent, as amazing as her doesn't see right through my facade of necessary deception. 

“Sometimes the shallowest literature can lead to the deepest interpretations wouldn't you agree?”

“I don't know if I would go so far as that, but it quite remarkable where the mind ventures if left unburdened”

“It really is a shame the magic that allows us to understand one another doesn't extend to our respective written languages. I was so looking forward to reading one of those, what were they called again, ah yes rainbow drinker novels you once told me about.” The light upward tilt in her voice mimics my growing alarm does she know about what I'm trying to do? No way!! I've taken every precaution I could to keep it a secret.

“I wouldn't exactly call those novels emblematic of the better section of alternian literature” I admit nervously. “They're more of a personal taste that I have acquired” Guilty pleasure more than personal taste really. Frankly I would be downright embarrassed if Rose read any of the more... “descriptive” novels next to my bedside novel-box. 

“I understand exactly what you mean. We have very similar genres on earth in fact, many of which carry a strong social stigma of inferiority among other literature connoisseurs.” Hmm what human genre would be the equivalent of Rainbow Drinker novels? I'll have to ask John about it later.

“May I take a look?” Rose beckons towards my bedside novel-box.

“Yes of course” She slides past me with the grace of a succubus and picks up the one I was reading last night, _“Pity-Washed Dalliance of A Quadrant-Widowed Tealblood and a Young Dashing Newly Turned Rainbow Drinker,”_ by Jervis Lorein. He happens to be one of my favorite authors back on Alternia, one of the original post-enlightenment authors. His novels spanned the transition from the Hemorevival era to the endlessly more exciting Serendipity Renaissance. Eventually he wrote a novel that wasn't too favorable on seadwellers and was hung by his bulge over a pit of musclesharks until the skin ripped off and he fell into their teeth but that's quite besides the point.

“What an interesting binding though” Her off-handed remark betrays her innate curiosity. I've never met anyone else quite so eager for knowledge as myself. It's one of the reasons I lo- like her. I walk up to her and place my hand over hers, ignoring the little shock of electricity running through my body, as I trace through the swirls of color permanently imprinted on the cover.

“It's Lusus skin actually, not just the bindings but also the pages.” Rose opens to the first page and runs her fingers down the incomprehensible lettering. “Lately it's gone out of fashion but it used to be a status symbol for seadwellers. Not only did it make books waterproof, but it was also an insult to uppity landdweller highbloods. Notice the ink?”

“It shimmers slightly when you hold it at different angles to the light and...” I take advantage of her momentary pause to take a closer look at the mystery that is Rose Lalonde. What do I know about her? She's smart, that much I knew for sure the first time I met her, and she knows it too, humbleness is not exactly one of her strongest features even if she doesn't exactly go flaunting it about. She's curious almost to a fault, though that again was obvious from the first time she came to me with endless questions about troll culture and troll customs barely giving me time to talk before moving onto the next line in her legal pad. That's just her surface though, what else do I know about Rose Lalonde? Do I even really know her?

I know she cocks her head half an inch to the left before any of the endless witty retorts she wields against her lusus-sibling and against me. I know that her true mastery of the stringmusicmaker, the “violin,” only shows itself in the solitude of her own room when she thinks nobody's listening. When she plays for people, she holds herself back ever so slightly. I don't know whether she is even aware of it herself, and I wouldn't even know if I hadn't gone up to her room and heard her from outside the walls, playing what I would later learn to be Mendelsohns concerto in E minor. Beautiful as liquid sunrise, raining down upon me and it was all I could do not to smash open the door and beg her to play more, to keep playing for me.

“It's troll blood”

“Inferior troll blood technically, a mix from rust to the lower end of the green spectrum. Even the seadwellers wouldn't go on land and murder indigo-bloods just for a book. But it was a way to show the land high-bloods that they could take their property at anytime and there was nothing they could do about it.” 

“How morbidly fascinating” Not revolting or disturbing, or historically interesting, though each of those emotions did pass through her pale starshine-speckled face for a fraction of a second. Morbidly fascinating. Gog this girl is amazing. “Do you mind if I keep this?” To meet someone so likeminded, so positively intricate, a mystery of precious fire and burning ice, to even think, to even consider a quadrant I had long ago given up on... “Kanaya?” Oh wait she's talking to me what'd she ask? “Do you mind if I borrow this book?”

“O-oh of course that's one of my favorites!! the dark undertones of pale-flushed vascillation and the danger it poses towards their other quadrants are positively UNIQUE quite unlike anyting I've ever read and the characterization of bloodpusher hunger is nothing less than what one would expect from a master of Alternian literature, I mean not that you can read it but hopefully you'll still enjoy it however much youcan” Gog I'm rambling this is embarrassing my face is probably glowing like a rustblood in heat, hopefully she doesn't notice it oh who am I kidding Rose notices everything, she is a SEER after all.

*****

John was busy tonight, 314 grubbeetles to whoever guesses with whoooooooom, oh pardon me I should have said “gru88eetles.” It would 8e just DREADFUL if I happened to 8e insensitive to his new flushcrush 8a8e after all, wouldn't it?? They should just get their own priv8 recuperacoon and put stickers of Nick C8ge aaaaaaaall over it why the grub not?? That w8y they could just pail ALL d8y long might as well 8e productive with how much time they spend locked up and the whole situation is just PERFECTLY DANDY isn't it????????

Jealous???????? Noooooooo I mean it's not like you and Vriska were ever a thing. That would be quite ludricious she's never done ANYTHING to lead you on after all. I mean storming into your hive BEGGING for advice on how to not have everyone hate her, oh that was just a platonic nightlong pap session wasn't it. And like its not like those pillows over there still smell like her because she was in here for HOURS trying to get help on how to seduce John(pardon me “the 8lue eyed 8ork”). And its not like I was the only one who was even allowed to so much as touch her without getting a sneer in return for sweeps, noooooooo she has her little 8lue eyed dork to hold her now lets just forget about old fussyfangs she always was a 8itch wasn't she?

Ughh... I'm not even mad about that. Me and Vriska were never good moirails and yea would it have been nice to have some closure? Totally. I mean not that not talking about it for months and making excuses and ignoring me whenever I even half brought up the topic of papping or pity wasn't a PERFECTLY acceptable of breaking up. But I'm not really mad about that anymore. I'm mad at these dam- at these irrationally exasperating flashcards I'm supposed to be studying. That's just a stupid name for a stupid concept. I mean flashcards?? Why not call it something useful and related to its purpose like Memoryenhancingflipflaps?

Not to mention that this drawing of a flushcouple is completely out of proportion why in the world is his face almost as big as his torso and her rumblespheres should really be lower they're not supposed to grow on her neck. What's the word whats the word???  
This is such a disaster I don't even remember the english word for flushcouple.

And If I'm being completely truthful I'm kind of mad with the ease that Vriska gets John to hang out with her. Today it took them four words to decide what to do. “Mario kart?” “You're on” and without further ado they're alone in Vriska's room. For me and Rose it's different. Neither of us are the type to just say what we want, it always has to be a game, a contest of verbal wits and yea I love that about her but it also just really really exasperates me. I have to drop these little hints that maybe I like you and then go right back to acting just as a friend and I don't even know if I'm doing it right, how am I supposed to flirt with someone like her? Its just a complete enigma maybe I'm just doing the whole thing wrong.

Dateflirt right? I'm pretty sure thats the word. I turn the flashcard over and sigh. “Couple” not dateflirt whatever that is and its now official that tonight sucks. My phone rings and its a welcome distraction to this little pool of self pity I find myself in.

TT: Would you perhaps want to come over and discuss the finer points of modern existentialism with me? I happen to find myself rather desiring of your presence.  
GA: I Would Like Nothing More.

*****

To Rose 

From Kanaya

First let me say I despise your language. I despise the unregularities, the laws that exist to be broken, the fickle inconsistency of vowels and words. That is neither however there nor this. 

I learned this, this mess of a linguistic culture, because I wanted to tell you something. I wish I could tell you this in person, but despite my readings, I am not well at conversations. Especially when they are of this topic. 

See by now I had given forward, resigned, myself to being stranded to two quadrants. I've been an auspistice more times than I can count and had my fair share of diamonds to. Black never appealed to me either and yet in all of Alternia I never did find anybody who could fill my favorite quadrant. I never found a heart. 

You might be wondering why Im telling you this, most of it you already know either because I told you or because you seem to know everything worth knowing. I suppose I should just come out and tell you, that would probably be easiest I think. Rambling on and on and on will hardly get my point across.

See the thing I might perhaps have umm had feelings of a pititable nature towards you. There I said it. Now you know. And its been going on for months and months but, but last night changed everything. 

I fell in flush with you last night, as if before I had merely been hanging from a ledge, and only now let go to drown in your beauty, in your passion, in the wonderful haze that you seem to make of everything I was once sure of.

No not even flush, I fell in “love,” that beautiful human word that simply rolls off the tongue and pops in the air, making the rest of the sentence, the rest of the world irrelevant. 

I fell in love with the way your eyes shone as you talked about music, and earth, and the interconnectedness of life and love as if you knew it all. There is a fine line between arrogance and absolute brilliance and that line was the crease of your bangs as I placed them behind your ear and the all knowing smirk as you pushed them right back forward.

I fell in love with the little spark of electricity coursing through my body whenever your hand fell on mine accidentally, was it accidental? Could it be that maybe you love me back?

I fell in love with your drunken dance that matched the beat of the fire because of course you would have alchemized a fireplace in the shape of a giant bulb, enclosed by swirling purple amethyst, and of course your books would colonize every free square inch of space so much that both of us tripped in our futile attempts to dance a slow waltz.

I fell in love with how you held your glass when you talked, perpetually tilted to the point of spilling and yet nary a drop fell. I fell in love with your mismatched earrings and your spiels about conformity and misogyny. I fell in love with your subtle shade of eyeshadow and your not so subtle shade of lipstick, captivating, ravishing, daring me to smash my lips against yours.

You offered me dark red wine, one of those “human soporifics,” and I didn't even hesitate to lift the glass and drown the last of my raddled nerves in lieu of not playing with your hair all night long and not memorizing the bridge of your nose and the curve of your lips, and not drowning in the worlds that you painted with your tongue. Maybe if I got drunk enough I could tell you this instead of writing it in the privacy of my recuperacoon, at least that was my reasoning. I'm glad I didn't though. I want the moment I do tell you to be forever clear in my mind, free from the haze and mist of alcohol.

I love you Rose Lalonde, my Rose from Hell. 

*****

It's becoming easier for me to make sense of these hieroglyphics. John upgraded my stash of wiggler-level books to “young adult” novels. The content is endlessly more fascinating. I had begun to wonder if all of Earth literature consisted of moral lessons disguised as fashionably dressed (and less than fashionably dressed) animals. The concept of human love still seems a little foreign though. It seems to me that 90% of the romantic drama in these novels could be solved by adding the other three quadrants. The novel I'm reading now has a young british “lad”(that word is fun to say) who is so far pitch for a rich young debutante that they just need to hatesnog and get over it. It's a classic time honored rivalry. He hates her for growing up with the money he never had, for having a brash confidence that he secretly envious, for her absolutely stunning repartee that bugs him in a way noone else can. She despises the way he just dismisses her talents as products of money when she worked her fingers to the bone to please her overdemanding dad and it just bugs her that he somehow happens to be just as talented as what she does without the same amount of effort. The author is practically shouting spades, and yet as with all human literature it is not quite so simple. Its not a simple matter of kismestude but an endlessly more complicated matter of passive-aggressive infatuation and love-hate relationship. Quite stupid and yet somehow endlessly fascinating.

Project Rosemary is nearing completion and thank gog because I am positively awash with impatience. Either impatience or fear, I'm still not sure which is stronger but both are tearing me apart even as the lines of ink on the parchment under my mattress grow longer and more eloquent. I pull it out carefully rereading yet again the ornate green handwriting, searching for any hint of mistake even though I wrote each word with the care of a seamstress weaving her last thread. Its perfect, its a masterpiece, its the most illustrious thing I've ever written, its too emotional, its not to her standards, its completely laughable. No come on Kanaya you can do this, don't do this to yourself don't overthink it, it's quite simple just go to Rose's room, knock on the door, and hand her the letter. You learned a whole gogdamn language for this don't back out now.

It's still not finished. There's more than enough room on the parchment for a couple more lines but the sense of anxiety washing over me tell me that if I don' do this now I'll never do it. How should I take it? I need some sort of receptacle. A cursory glance around the room reveals nothing I can't simply walk around with it what if somebody asks me what I'm carrying? I shall simply have to be as sneaky as one of those human ninjas.

The first couple hallways are empty except for a small white squeakbeast I accidentally massacre with my chainsaw. Poor beast. May it rest in pieces(I'm learning to use the human pun, its quite a fascinating concept). I'm walking past the hallway where Karkat resides when I hear John's increasingly loud voice behind the door.

“Come on we don't have all day Karkat could come back to his room any minute!!”

Dave's voice follows his and with a spark of alarm I realize they're getting closer to the door, which means they'll open the door, which means they'll see me and starting asking questions and I won't know what to say. Out of options, out of time, I reach into a pocket and pull out a small key. Perfect!! I quickly put it into my chastity modus and turn the key unlocking a medium sized gray receptacle for me to quickly stuff the letter inside.

The door opens and both John and Dave are carrying multiple mostly empty packets of gummy crabs. They must have alchemized them.

“Hey Kanaya!! What are you doing here?”

“Oh uh nothing!!!!” My answer turns into a squeak as I look at what I have in my hands.

“And why do you have a bucket?” Another squeak at the b-word and my face is almost certainly redder than a tomato right now.

“uh n-no re-reason no reason at all I was simplyu-umm...”

Dave leans in and whispers, “Are you doing the nasty with kk?”

“No of course not!!!” Oh Serendipity this is awful. The situation is made worse by the dream I had last night. A feelings jam with him turned into me touching his nubby little horns and him putting his mouth to some use other than just shouting and sure I mean no you know what this is completely irrelevant it was simply sexual frustration it didn't mean ANYTHING.

“Because it's cool if you are but like I just want to know...does he shout during the... thing? Cause that sounds like a thing he'd do like people think of karkat and they think oh yea that guys louder than a texan cowb-” I don't get to hear the rest of what will surely be an illustrious and quote unquote “ironasickly” metaphor because I suddenly take off running away from Karkat's room still carrying a gogdamn bucket. No no I can't be having this conversation, this can't be happening. I turn the corner and smack headfirst into-speak of the devil- if it isn't our illustrious leader.

“KANAYA WHAT THE BLISTERING F-” His face freezes midcurse under me as he catches a look at the receptacle hanging precariously from one slightly less nubby horn. Mouth still half open he slowly tilts his head to the left until the rec-, t-the _bucket_ , falls with an abnormally loud clatter on the tile floor, rolling to a stop against a pair of cerulean lined leather boots, MY cerulean lined leather boots, that I made for...

“FUSSYFANGS!!

I scramble off karkats scrawny figure and grab the bucket with two single fingers hauling it with me as I run forward away from my pale-crush and my ex-flush-crush who just saw me crash into them with a bucket in my hand. Serendipity just cull me now I'll never be able to look at them the same.

Thankfully I see nobody else and its in front of Rose's door that I stop gasping for breath. She used magic to make it more suited to her particular taste. A heavy brass knocker reminiscent of earth's “gothic” period stands amid a mass of black vines and red, juicy, highly hallucinatory berries. I lift the heavy knocker and almost let it go without remembering what exactly caused the previous fiasco. Letting it slowly back down without making a sound I pull the thankfully uncrumpled parchment out from inside the _thing,_ and stick the _b-bucket_ back inside my chastity modus. Stay in there and don't come out!!

I lift the knocker again and let it fall against the door with a heavy boom. To my surprise it swings upon of its own accord. Apparently not closed properly, the door was opened with the mere weight of the hanger. I slide past the half opened door and switch on the lights. Empty. No sign of Rose or indeed of anyone. Perhaps she went to grab something to eat. In that case I should depart for now and return after she comes back, it isn't exactly polite to be in someone's room without their knowledge. That's just what I intended to do too, until I noticed the book lying primly on her pillow. It was my book, that she borrowed, with a crow's tail bookmark. Typical Rose.

It opens to the 223rd page of “Pity-Washed Dalliance of A Quadrant-Widowed Tealblood and a Young Dashing Newly Turned Rainbow Drinker” right after the part where his unorthodoxly pale desires just caused her ex-flush partner to be savagely drained of all her blood. Right now Sahray has no idea that his flirt has her bags packed to escape that very night. This indeed is the crossroad of the novel, the point where the story has an equal chance of going either up and down. And yet I've reread this enough times to know that even without the element of mystery this part will always be my favorite. 

_"Why do I keep coming back to you?"_

_"Because Serendipity's overrated and addictions a terrible thing to break"_

Not for the first time I remind myself how glad I am Rose can't read Alternian. Trashy rainbow-drinker novels are hardly emblematic of the classy persona I normally portray. Why would she have placed the bookmark though? Another mystery from the enigmatic Rose Lalonde.

"Hello Kanaya" She remarks, grinning at my little jump of surprise. Her entry was that of a succubus, silent and deadly. If she hadn't seen fit to make a remark I would still find myself oblivious to her presence. 

Okay I can do this Kanaya, just act like Vriska tell her how you fell just tell her tell her now!!!

Undoubtedly my addled nerves were to blame. I had just shown my bucket to four friends and then run off without an explanation. Either that or the positively ravishing black vixen dress she was wearing. She was a temptress from Hell and I was a fly in her web. Whatever the reason I'm not exactly proud of what I did next. 

Why exactly I thought it was a good idea to grab the half kitted blanket folded neatly on the corner of the bed and toss it over Rose's head blocking her vision I actually have no idea. Well actually no that's a lie. I did it so she wouldn't see me as I fled from her room. A thousand threshecutioners behind me would hardly have given me more panic than I felt at that moment. 

It was only after I slammed the door to my respiteblock and dove under my sheets that I remembered the whole purpose of that fiasco. I had left the love letter in her room, in plain sight, right after making a bigger fool of myself than a lovestruck wiggler. 

Oh Serendipity I'm such a mess.

_Write her a letter in which the amount of circumnavigating and angst could rival Mr. Darcy’s. Debate where to leave it all day – on her pillow? In her coat pocket? Throw it away in frustration, conveniently leaving it face up in the trashcan, her name scrawled on the front in your sloppy handwriting. Let her wonder if you meant it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol how do I even rosemary? Plan is to have all 8 chapters up by Valentines day

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!!! Tell me what you think :)  
> Hey you guys should follow my tumblr poetry blog- http://2amstuff.tumblr.com/  
> Love y'all


End file.
